On which I write about the books I read, science, science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that I want to. Currently trying to read and comment upon every novel that has won the Hugo and International Fantasy awards.

Monday, June 27, 2016

As I noted last week, my son recently graduated from high school. At his graduation, the chorus (which included my daughter) performed Time to Say Goodbye. The school orchestra also contributed to the ceremony, performing Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, which happens to be one of my favorite pieces of music. So, to continue the tribute to my son completing the first large hurdle in life, here is the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra playing the concerto.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

As the Hugo statistics become less uniform, one has to answer the question of exactly what the term "Hugo Longlist" actually means. Though the format for releasing the statistics has taken a relatively regular form in more recent years, in 2011, they were still organized in a more haphazard fashion. The Hugo statistics for each year are released under the auspices of Section 3.11.4 of the World Science Fiction Constitution, which says in relevant part:

During the same period the nomination voting totals shall also be published, including in each category the vote counts for at least the fifteen highest vote-getters and any other candidate receiving a number of votes equal to at least five percent (5%) of the nomination ballots cast in that category, but not including any candidate receiving fewer than five votes.

This means that the Hugo administrators are supposed to list the top fifteen works that received nominations each year, as well as any other works that had at least 5% of the nominations (in practice this second requirement will probably only matter once in a while in the most popular categories - in 2011, it only mattered in the Best Novel category). The only exception is if a nominee placed in the top fifteen nomination-getters but had fewer than five nominations - those nominees are to be excluded from the released statistics. The only limit on the number of items that may be on the lists released by the Hugo administrators is that it cannot include nominees who received fewer than five nominations. As a result, these lists could be quite voluminous and consequently, unwieldy.

Having a list with several dozen entries per category (as would be the case if one simply copied some of the released lists) would, in my opinion, defeat the purpose of having a Hugo Longlist. At the point that one has three or four dozen entries per category, the list is no longer providing a representative cross-section of what works and people were popular, but rather a cross-section of everything without any real regard for quality. Using the released lists as is would also result in wildly variable longlists from year to year, with some having the minimum number of entries per category, and others having literally dozens. With that in mind, and taking the rules concerning what statistics the Hugo administrators are directed to release, I'm going to use the following rules of thumb when constructing the longlists:

Any nominee who finished in the top fifteen places in their category will be listed on the Longlist.

If there is a tie for fifteenth place, all nominees who tie for fifteenth place will be listed on the Longlist.

Any nominee who received more than 5% of the nominations in their category but didn't place in the top fifteen for their category will also be listed on the Longlist.

Any nominee who meets the above criteria but didn't appear on more than five nominating ballots will be excluded from the Longlist. These nominees are not supposed to be included on the Hugo statistics report, so this exclusion should have to be invoked rarely, if ever.

This means that in some years, a number of works and people who appeared on the released list of Hugo statistics will be left off of the Hugo Longlist. For 2011, this means that the following nominees are left off of the Longlist:

Best Novel:Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld, Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, For the Win by Cory Doctorow, Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente, I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, Zendegi by Greg Egan, and Zoo City by Lauren Beukes.

Best Novella:Earth III by Stephen Baxter, Iron Shoes by J. Kathleen Cheney, Jackie's Boy by Steven Popkes, Seven Cities of Gold by David Moles, and The Taborin Scale by Lucius Shepard.

Best Novelette:Amor Vincit Omnia by K.J. Parker, The Cage by A.M. Dellamonica, Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allen, Helping Them Take the Old Man Down by William Preston, In the Stacks (Swords and Dark Magic) by Scott Lynch, The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Theodora Goss, The Precedent by Sean McMullen, and Torhec the Sculptor by Tanith Lee.

Best Short Story:The President's Brain Is Missing by John Scalzi and When the Yogurt Took Over by John Scalzi.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form:Lost: The End, Metropolis (2010 restoration), and Never Let Me Go.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:Being Human: Mama Said There'd Be Decades Like These and Vertically Mobile Comedy: Eric in the Elevator.

I can't identify any pattern that would explain why these categories were seemingly over reported in this particular way. I've excised them from the Hugo Longlist as reported here. In the future, I may put together a list of nominees that appear on the official reported Hugo statistics but which I have excluded from the Longlists in accordance with the criteria listed above, but that is a project that I am not going to take on today.

Longlisted Nominees:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles YuKraken by China MievilleThe Quantum Thief by Hannu RajaniemiShades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette KowalShip Breaker by Paolo BacigalupiSurface Detail by Iain M. BanksTerminal World by Alastair ReynoldsUnder Heaven by Guy Gavriel KayThe Way of Kings by Brandon SandersonWho Fears Death by Nnedi OkoraforWWW: Watch by Robert Sawyer

Longlisted Nominees:Batwoman: Elegy by Greg RuckaDominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire by Michael TerraccianoDuel in the Somme by Rob Balder and Ben BovaHereville by Barry DeutschFreakangels: Book 4 by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Who is your favorite fictional couple?

My favorite fictional couple is Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel, whose story is found primarily in the Silmarillion. Beren was a mortal man, the mightiest hunter of his age, and Lúthien was an half-elven half-maia princess, the daughter of Thingol, the king of Doriath and his angelic consort Melian.

Beren was originally a prince, the son of King Barahior, but Morgoth's forces destroyed his kingdom and eventually slew his entire family. Beren continued to fight Morgoth with the aid of friendly animals until he was driven by his homeland by the combined might of Sauron and Draugluin. He then fled on a path of terror eventually finding his way across the Girdle of Melian into Doriath where he saw Lúthien and immediately fell in love with her.

Lúthien was also in love with Beren, but her father was unimpressed with a mere mortal man, and would only allow him to marry his daughter if he could recover one of the silmarils from Morgoth's crown. Given that recovering the silmarils was the reason that an entire race of elves killed their own kin and returned to Middle-Earth from the Blessed Lands before unsuccessfully waging war for centuries against overwhelming and insurmountable forces, this was something of a difficult request.

Not to be deterred, Beren set out to do the impossible. Not content to wait at home, Lúthien set out to help him. In a series of adventures that saw the pair fighting Sauron himself, charming Morgoth's entire court and confronting Carcharoth, the greatest werewolf who ever lived, the pair succeeded, but at the cost of Beren's hand, and ultimately, their own lives. The pair were married, but Beren was later mortally wounded while hunting Carcharoth, causing Lúthien to die of grief. Her lamentations were so great that Mandos brought the two back from the dead so they could live out their lives, although their resurrection was at the cost of her immortality.

Friday, June 24, 2016

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.

Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.

Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".

If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.

If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Name one or more standalone books that you wish was a series.

I'm going to pick a book that was originally supposed to have a sequel, but which still does not. Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany was originally published in 1984. When it was published, Delany intended to follow it up with a book titled The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities, but this sequel remains unfinished, and sadly will probably never be completed. I hold out some small hope, because Delany is still alive and a miracle might happen that motivates him to complete this long-unfinished work, but the reality is that he has shown no interest in it in decades.

Despite this, I keep hoping because Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand is a brilliant work of science fiction. Set in a distant future in which humanity has spread out over thousands of star systems dominated by two loose alliances - the permissive Sygn, and the conservative Family. These two alliances exist to try to prevent the phenomenon of "cultural fugue", a destructive cycle in which runaway social and technological complexity combine into a force that results in the complete annihilation of entire planetary populations.

The book centers on a relationship between "Rat" Korga, a tall social malcontent who has undergone an extreme medical procedure called "radical anxiety termination" and is the only known survivor of a planet that has undergone cultural fugue, and Marq Dyeth, an industrial diplomat who lives on a planet humanity shares with the three-gendered evelm. The two are determined to be a perfect match by the WEB and Rat is equipped with a device that overcomes his near total lobotomization and sent to meet Marq. Much of the meat of the book surrounds their very short relationship, and uses this to explore the sexual dynamics, cultural implications, and political relations of this distant and alien, but still very human society that Delany conceived.

The book does have an ending and so is more or less able to stand alone, but as one might expect for a book that was originally conceived of as a diptych, that ending is somewhat ambiguous and vaguely unsatisfying. The personal and professional conditions under which Delany wrote Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand are long gone, and are extremely unlikely to ever be replicated, so we will likely never see the promised conclusion to this two-part series. I can only hope that there is an alternate reality out there somewhere in which The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities was written, and that maybe circumstances will turn in such a way that a copy from this alternate reality will wind up in my hands someday.

Monday, June 20, 2016

My son graduated from high school last Thursday. To be honest, there were times that I was concerned he might not make it, but there he was, crossing the stage with the rest of his class and getting his diploma. I'm still worried for him, but he's gotten over this hurdle, and with luck, he'll be able to navigate the waters ahead.

As part of the graduation ceremony, the school choir sang Time to Say Goodbye. Though they aren't quite as good as Bocelli and Brightman, they were still excellent. I may be biased a bit, as my daughter is in the choir, but they captured the tone of the moment perfectly. The rest of you just have to listen to Bocelli and Brightman and imagine what my daughter might have sounded like.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Do you have your photo in your profile?

I have a photo of myself in my Google+ profile. It is an older photo taken on the day I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Maybe one of these days Google+ will be relevant again, and then I will update the photo.

I do not have a photo of myself on my "Who I Am" page here. Instead, I have some mostly outdated pictures of my book shelves. I suppose I could update my page here to put my picture on it, but for the most part it is pretty easy to find pictures of me on this blog, so I may not ever bother.

Friday, June 17, 2016

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.

Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.

Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".

If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.

If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Five websites you love to lurk around that are not shopping sites.

Only five? This is going to be difficult. With apologies to great sites like Clarkesworld, Whatever, and io9, here are my top five:

File 770: This is the best place to get day to day news about what is happening in the science fiction and fantasy community. Run by Mike Glyer, the site posts daily round-ups linking to and providing excerpt from an array of blogs, award sites, convention sites, and other places. File 770 also posts other articles on various topical issues ranging from interviews with Chinese science fiction authors to information about scholarship being done with respect to the works of authors such as Ray Bradbury and J.R.R. Tolkien.

LibraryThing: LibraryThing is my favorite book cataloging site. In practical terms, it is the only book cataloging site that I use. While I do have a Goodreads account, I have used it so rarely that it may as well not exist. I have my entire book library cataloged on LibraryThing and I use their review writing function to create the4 first drafts of all my book reviews.

Locus Online: While reading File 770 will keep one abreast of the news of the science fiction and fantasy community, reading Locus Online will keep one informed of the doings of the science fiction and fantasy publishing world. With articles about awards and interviews with authors, editors, and publishers, this site has all the news anyone could ever want about the doings of the genre book publishing world.

TwentySided: Originally created by Shamus Young as his personal website, TwentySided has grown into a shared blog with a half-dozen contributors. The website primarily features articles about computer gaming and game design, but it also features articles about tabletop gaming, extended analysis about how computer games work and how their stories are put together, as well as humorous deconstructions of several different video game tropes. This site is home to the Spoiler Warning YouTube show and the Diecast podcast. It is also the home of the DM of the Rings webcomic.

Tor.com: Tor.com was originally created by the genre fiction publisher Tor, but has since been spun off into its own quasi-independent entity. Although Tor.com has a very well-written blog with articles on a wide variety of topics, the best part of the website is the fiction, which, by and large, is top notch work. Tor.com is also home to the Rocket Talk podcast.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Short review: An account of how African Americans answered their country's call in World War I hoping their dedication and service would pave the way for equality and justice for their community. Instead, they faced racism and hostility, but emerged from the war as leaders dedicated to changing the world they lived in.

Haiku
During World War I
A community rallied
To confirm their worth

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Some people think this may bias a reviewer so I am making sure to put this information up front. I don't think it biases my reviews, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

Full review: U.S. history can be thought of in two very different ways. On the one hand, there is the version of history that most school children are taught that seems to have inspired such properties as the History Rock portions of Schoolhouse Rock and which dominates the nostalgia-filled speeches of politicians. In this version of history, the U.S. is a shining city on a hill, built by idealists upon the principles of liberty and freedom after throwing off the yoke of British tyranny. In this version, the U.S. became a champion of progress and democracy, a nation filled with exceptional people that had an exceptional role in the world. On the other, there is reality, which is a version of history that is far less inspiring, but also far more interesting. African American Army Officers of World War I is about the second, very real version of U.S. history, and is an unflinching examination of some of the the best and worst aspects of U.S. history.

In 1915 and 1916, with the prospect of entering the raging war in Europe dominating many minds in the United States, prominent members of the African-American community began pushing for black candidates be trained as officers in the American army. As early as July 1916, calls were made for a training camp to be established for African-American men to receive training that would prepare them to be officer candidates in the event of American entry into the war. Given the title of this book, it should come as no surprise that after much political maneuvering and effort, the Fort Des Moines Training Camp for Colored Officers was established in 1917 with an initial class of 1,250 candidates drawn from the black community - 250 to come from the ranks of non commissioned officers already serving in the U.S. Army, and the rest to be drawn from the civilian population. This book is the account of the push for the creation of this camp, the controversies that surrounding its formation and operation, and the men who served first in its program and then as officers in the U.S. Army during World War I, and the profound ways in which these men shaped the United States following the war.

African-American soldiers have served in all of the was waged by the United States. The black regiments raised by the Union during the U.S. Civil War, such as the 54th Massachusetts, are well known, as are the unites of black "Buffalo Soldiers" who served on the frontier, but black soldiers also fought in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 (although not all served on the side of the U.S.). Wilson documents this history of black service in the first chapter of African American Army Officers of World War I to give the context in which the debate over creating a segregated camp to train African-American officers for services in the army took place.

The most critical observation of the period between the U.S. Civil War and the establishment of the training camp at Fort Des Moines is the dichotomy between the aspirational language used in the laws concerning black service in the U.S. armed forces, and the actually under which they were implemented. Formally there was no legal impediment to black candidates entering the service academies at Annapolis and West Point, but in practice the deficiencies in the education afforded to most black citizens and the reluctance of the legislative branch to recommend such candidates meant that very few could even gain admission. Even if a black candidate did gain admission to one of the service academies, the environment was so hostile that very few managed to graduate - between the U.S. Civil War and U.S. entry into World War I, only a handful of black soldiers managed to graduate and secure positions as officers, the most successful of which was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young whose career seems to have been hampered by the Army's efforts to ensure that he was never placed in a position where he would command white troops, going to far as to have him forced into retirement for medical reasons rather than promote the officer to Brigadier rank.

This official equality and practical discrimination was replicated in the enlisted ranks, most notably in an instance in Brownsville, Texas in which a company of black soldiers assigned to the army installation there aroused such hatred from the local populace that the locals threatened to meet the incoming soldiers with a posse to drive them out. After the soldiers had been stationed there, an incident in which the soldiers were almost certainly merely defending themselves resulted in an inquest after which President Theodore Roosevelt sided with the locals and had all of the black soldiers present dishonorably discharged. This should come as little surprise considering Roosevelt's disparaging remarks concerning the black soldiers who served with him in the Spanish-American War. Time and again, official equality for blacks in the armed services was undermined by a practical application of the rules that was anything but even-handed. Behind even this official facade of equality lurked naked racism: After the Brownsville incident, many in Congress urged that blacks be formally barred from entering the service academies, and that all black non-commissioned officers in the armed forces be stripped of their rank.

It is against this historical backdrop that the call for the creation of a training camp for black officers was made. Many leaders in the black community foresaw American involvement in the conflict in Europe, and argued that blacks should serves, and that the Army should give black citizens the opportunity to train as officers. Prominent voices in the black community such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Kelly Miller, Fred R. Moore, and others called upon young African-American men to step up to volunteer for duty and become both an example of the loyalty and bravery of the African-American citizen, and a new generation of leaders for their community. As Wilson details, this call was not without controversy, both within and without the black community. Many white Americans opposed the idea of training black men as officers, mostly for predictably racist reasons: Black men were said to be fundamentally unfit for leadership, black men were inherently unreliable, black men were not intelligent enough to serve as officers, and so on. Many within the black community opposed such a training camp on far sounder grounds - the first reviving arguments made during the Spanish-American War which asked why black men should be asked to volunteer to defend liberty and democracy abroad when the society they lived in denied them the same at home. This is a quite reasonable question, and when one reads and outline of how African-American soldiers had been treated to that point, the question that comes to mind is not "why should blacks serve", but rather "why have blacks not deserted the nation in droves".

The second objection to the proposed camp from the black community was something of an extension of the first: The proposed camp was to be segregated. Black officer candidates were to train separately from white officer candidates, and given the Army's track record when it came to actually implementing equal treatment for black and white soldiers, having concerns in this area was entirely justified. Further, having a separate segregated training camp was also seen as an ideological affront, a statement from the government that black America was different from white America. While many modern day Americans are familiar with the Jim Crow laws segregating blacks from whites, many also have the somewhat blinkered view that such laws were the exclusive province of Southern states. The story of the creation of, and controversy surrounding, the training camp at Fort Des Moines should put these notions to rest: In the early part of the 20th century, the United States as a whole was remained an almost unapologetically racist society.

Despite these objections, the segregated Seventeenth Provisional Training Regiment was created - those who supported it reasoning that even though a segregated training camp was not an ideal solution, half of something was better than all of nothing. A call went out for volunteers, and around 1,250 men responded, drawn from among the best and brightest that the African-American community of that era had to offer as pleas went out for "doctors, lawyers, teachers, business men, and all those who graduated from high school" to enlist. Roughly a quarter of the men who responded had been educated at Howard University, the remainder from dozens of other institutions of higher learning. As Wilson details, the recruitment of this collection of volunteers was not without hiccups, but in retrospect it seems almost remarkable that so many men would choose to give of themselves to an institution that had proved so hostile to them for so long.

Although many prominent black leaders had hoped that Colonel Young would command the training regiment, but his forced retirement prevented that from happening. Instead, Colonel Charles C. Ballou was given the position, and as Wilson lays out, the work of transforming the volunteers into officers began. Much of the history of this process seems fairly unremarkable, although Wilson does highlight both the triumphs of the cadets, and the to be expected indignities heaped upon them. Des Moines was chosen because, as a northern city, it was believed that it would be more welcoming to the training regiment than a southern locale would be, and to a certain extent this was true. On the other hand, racism ran deep in American society, and there were some incidents that are documented as part of Wilson's narrative. More troubling were the obstacles the U.S. Army put in the way of the cadet's success. For his part, Ballou seems to have done his best to prepare the soldiers under his command for their role as officers, but the U.S. Army seems to have been determined to undermine them in sneaky ways. The officers trained at Fort Des Moines were only given infantry training, and were not to be allowed to enter active duty as artillery or communications officers. Later, when some officers were allowed to try their hand at artillery work, they were given little or no training in the use of the equipment, and then their predictably poor test scores were used as evidence that black officers were unsuited to that branch of the service. When all-black battalions were formed, they were divided and scattered across bases throughout the country so as to assuage fears that too many armed black men in one space would foment rebellion.

Time after time, through both official and unofficial means, overt and covert, the men of the Seventeenth Provisional Training Regiment found obstacles placed in their path due to their race. Even so, the bulk of the cadets completed their training and received commissions as officers. If one were to think that their path from there would be smooth, one would be mistaken. Not content with undermining their efforts during training, the U.S. Army continued to do so after the officers and their men were shipped off to France - turning a blind eye to insubordination by white soldiers, issuing orders limiting the freedom of black soldiers while on leave, making efforts to keep black soldiers out of combat lest they demonstrate that they were actually effective at the job, and even going so far as to try to tell the French army not to be too nice to the black soldiers when they were put under French command. Despite France's own less than sterling record in dealing with black troops recruited from their colonial holdings, the French were far more welcoming to the black American troops than their own white American countrymen had been. Ballou, now the commander of the all-black 92nd Division, lost pretty much any built up good will he had earned during his time commanding the Fort Des Moines training camp by issuing a series of orders that his black officers considered insulting and demeaning. Even when black soldiers were allowed into combat, their performance was denigrated in official reports that seem at odds with the other available evidence.

As Wilson's account demonstrates, the optimism and hope that fueled the push to create the training camp at Fort Des Moines and establish a corps of black officers within the U.S. Army proved to be misguided. Despite overcoming the obstacles placed in their way, the service and loyalty provided by black soldiers in World War I did little to change the attitudes of the society they lived in. On the other hand, what Wilson's account does show is that many of the men of the Seventeenth Provisional Training Regiment went on to become prominent voices in the black community resulting in an array of political leaders, legal scholars, academics, authors, and artists who shaped the course of the push for equality and justice over the decades following the war. Wilson leans perhaps a bit too heavily on the notion that their shared wartime experience was a prime factor in this development - after all the men who joined the the Seventeenth Provisional Training Regiment were already civic-minded enough to volunteer for service in answer to a call that asked them to give of themselves for a greater cause. There is something of a chicken and egg question here: Did the men whose stories are told in this book become leaders of their community because of their service as officers in the U.S. Army, or did they choose service as officers because they were already on their way to becoming leaders. Either way, their contributions cannot be overstated, and their sacrifices should not be forgotten.

Wilson is exceptionally thorough in his reporting, at times perhaps too thorough, as there are a few places where the book gets a bit repetitive. Even so, African American Army Officers of World War I recounts an important chapter in U.S. history - a chapter of the kind that is far too often overlooked, and which should not be. Wilson's account tells the story of men who not only stood up to be counted in their nation's time of need, their actions forced their nation to begin to live up to its ideals. This is the history of the worst aspects of the United States, but at the same time an account of the nobility that has made the country better than it was before. For anyone who has an interest in the full account of the history of the United States, this book is likely to be a fascinating read.

Monday, June 13, 2016

In just under two weeks, I'll be going to see Johnathan Coulton and Paul & Storm perform live. I have several of their albums, and all of the are great, but both acts really are at their very best live. The song Nun Fight is a perfect example of this: The studio version is technically perfect and an enjoyable song to listen to, but there is something wonderful about the pair of singers playing off of the reactions of the audience when they perform it live. The choreography, the pauses to account for laughter, the banter before the song - it all adds up to an experience that simply cannot be replicated in the recording booth.

In this version, Paul & Storm perform the song in an actual cathedral, which makes it very easy to imagine that it is being performed in a "vast boxing cathedral". The best part of the song is when Paul screws up, a moment that is made even more hilarious when one considers how many times they have successfully performed the song (and I have seen more that one of those instances), because they simply take the error in stride, express a few choice thoughts, reset, and try again. The point of this post is pretty much "go and see Paul & Storm live if you can". You won't regret it.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

The story revealed by the 2012 Hugo Longlist is how quickly the Game of Thrones television series became a dominant force among Hugo voters. Although the show only appeared one time on the official list of finalists where the entire first season of the show was nominated in the Long Form Dramatic presentation category, a perusal of the longlisted entries shows that two individual episodes garnered enough nominations to be eligible for finalist slots in the Short Form Dramatic Presentation category, and three others were close behind. Because the producers of the show apparently elected to have the entire season of the show considered in the Long Form category, the individual episodes were declared ineligible and replaced on the ballot by other entries, but this means that fully half of the episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones were popular enough to be nominated to the longlist, which is quite an impressive achievement.

I noted when I put together the 2013 Longlist that as I work further back in time that the records concerning the nominees will become less and less comprehensive. In 2013, the names of the editors and other participants in the longlisted nominees for the categories of Semi-Prozine, Fanzine, and Fancast were left out of the official records reported by the 2013 Hugo Administrators. In 2012, the names of some of the editors and participants in those categories who appeared on the list of finalists were left out of the reported post-Award statistics. This is not an insurmountable problem, as this data can still be found elsewhere, but it is notable how quickly the records seem to be deteriorating in quality as I work my way backward in time. One entry in the fanzine category has me somewhat puzzled, as it is listed in the official post-Award statistics only as "el" with nothing further provided. I have looked for "el" in the context of fanzines, but this sort of search returns so many Spanish language fanzines that figuring out which one is the right one. There is also the possibility that this entry is an error, and "el" is a truncated portion of the name of some fanzine that got accidentally trimmed off somewhere. Either way, this is likely to remain a mystery unless someone who was directly involved can shed some light on the issue.

Addendum: David D. Levine has shed some light on the "el" mystery. It appears likely that "el" is actually "eI" a fanzine published and edited by Earl Kemp that enjoyed a ten year run before folding up shop in 2012.

Longlisted Nominees:11/22/63 by Stephen KingChildren of the Sky by Vernor VingeDeathless by Catherynne M. ValenteFuzzy Nation by John ScalziThe Kingdom of the Gods by N.K. JemisinMechanique by Genevieve ValentineThe Quantum Thief by Hannu RajaniemiReady Player One by Ernest ClineRule 34 by Charles StrossThe Wise Man's Fear by Patrick RothfussZoo City by Lauren Beukes

Longlisted Nominees:The Adakian Eagle by Bradley DentonThe Alchemist by Paolo BacigalupiAngel of Europa by Allen M. SteeleThe Ants of Flanders by Robert ReedGravity Dreams by Stephen BaxterLord John and the Plague of Zombies by Diana GabaldonMartian Chronicles by Cory DoctorowThe Rat Race by Cherie PriestWith Unclean Hands by Adam-Troy Castro

Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue by John Scalzi

Longlisted NomineesAfter the Apocalypse by Maureen McHughThe Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne M. ValenteThe Drowner by Paedar O'GuilinGoodnight Moons by Ellen KlagesHer Husband's Hand by Adam-Troy CastroThe Invasion of Venus by Stephen BaxterMama, We Are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom CrosshillThe Server and the Dragon by Hannu Rajaniemi

Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art: A Collection of the Most Inspiring Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gaming Illustrators in the World by Karen Haber

Musings and Meditations by Robert SilverbergMurray Leinster: The Life and Works by Jo-An J. Evans and Billee J. StallingsNested Scrolls: The Autobiography of Rudolf von Bitter Rucker by Rudy RuckerPardon This Intrusion: Fantastika in the World Storm by John CluteSightings: Reviews 2002-2006 by Gary K. Wolfe

Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art by Arnie Fenner and Cathy Fenner

Whedonista: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them by Lynne M. Thomas and Deborah Stanish

Longlisted Nominees:Being Human: The Wolf Shaped BulletDoctor Who: The Wedding of River SongThe Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris LessmoreFringe: The Day We DiedFringe: Lysergic Acid DiethylamideGame of Thrones: A Golden CrownGame of Thrones: Winter Is ComingSupernatural: The French Mistake

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